Literary Publics in the German-speaking Eighteenth Century: Medial Practices of Patronage and Friendship (B01+)

• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 262513311

The subproject examines how German literary scholars conducted research on the Enlightenment before the institutional consolidation of eighteenth-century studies. Our work will focus on three major fields of inquiry: 1) Analyzing the unpublished correspondence of scholars such as Richard Alewyn and Arnold Hirsch, we will reconstruct practices of literary publics. 2) We will assemble a corpus of early literary-sociological studies presenting elements of a theory of literary publics 'before Habermas'. 3) Interviews with scholars engaged in eighteenth-century studies will highlight the cooperative dynamics at play between critical editions and the public from a historical perspective.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1187: Media of Cooperation
• Applicant Institution: Universität Siegen
• Project Heads: Professorin Dr. Nacim Ghanbari; Professor Dr. Georg Stanitzek, until 12/2019